Wednesday, December 4, 2013

With the increase in part-time pastorates, churches
seem to think more in term of a pastor’s hours.This attitude is no doubt imported from
the secular economy.They start
with the assumption that “full-time=40 hours per week.”Then, if the kind of part-time they are
talking about is “half,” they conclude that this means 20 hours per week.Then they design a contract for the
part-time pastor based on that amount of time.

First of all, let’s start with fallacious
assumption that full-time pastors work for 40 hours a week.This has nothing to do with the way
pastors actually work.I am
emphatically not claiming that pastors work 50, 60, or 70 hours a week. I do
not want to feed into the martyrdom/work-aholism of many pastors.I am saying that the work a pastor does
cannot be measured in time. What
we do was being done centuries before clocks were invented.

Ministry is not really a job like any other
job.We don’t punch time-clocks
and we don’t count hours. Serving
as the pastor of a church is a way of life.It is not something we do to make money, God knows.It is something we are.

I recently saw a job description for a
part-time pastor that carefully laid out how many hours a week the pastor was
supposed to devote to certain activities.It was ridiculous and insulting.

First of all, a pastor’s work has a cyclical quality to it depending on
the season.Secondly, a pastor’s
work is subject to changeable and impossible to predict circumstances.Thirdly, the things we do don’t always
take the same amount of time.Finally, it is often impossible to distinguish between time “on” and
time “off” when pastors are concerned.(The job description also listed things the pastor was expected to do,
but would not be getting paid for.Like praying.)

The PCUSA Form of Government describes the
work of a teaching elder/pastor.

“Teaching elders (also called ministers of
the Word and Sacrament) shall in all things be committed to teaching the faith
and equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4: 12)…. When they
serve as preachers and teachers of the Word, they shall preach and teach the
faith of the church, so that the people are shaped by the pattern of the gospel
and strengthened for witness and service. When they serve at font and table, they shall interpret the
mysteries of grace and lift the people’s vision toward the hope of God’s new
creation. When they serve as
pastors, they shall support the people in the disciplines of the faith amid the
struggles of daily life” (G-2.0501).

Here it is again, reformatted, adding the implicit categorization according to the traditional “means of grace,” the Word, Sacraments, and prayer:

· ---Teaching the
Faith and Equipping the Saints for the Work of Ministry.

1.Word: Preach
and teach the faith of the church, so that the people are shaped by the pattern
of the gospel and strengthened for witness and service.

2.Sacraments: Interpret
the mysteries of grace and lift the people’s vision toward the hope of God’s
new creation.

3.Prayer: Support
the people in the disciplines of the faith amid the struggles of daily life

Each part of this definition is oriented
towards the work of the people.Pastors
function as leaders, examples, teachers, servants, and advisors of other
Christians.A pastor is a
disciple trained to train others in discipleship.

The Book
of Order makes no mention of how much time
this is all supposed to take.It
makes no distinction between full-time and part-time ministry.

Part-time pastoral contracts should be
shaped around these three basic responsibilities, not hours.Since it is not just about doing these things, but teaching, equipping,
strengthening, lifting, and supporting the people
in doing them.In other words, the
missing half of part-time ministry is not just jettisoned; it is taken up by
the people, as trained and equipped by their pastor.Which is what the people are supposed to be doing anyway,
were these skills not allowed to atrophy by the corruption of full-time
ministry.

Then we need to take this part-time model
and extend it to full-time ministry.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

We have this idea that a successful church
is one that is gaining members, and that the more members a church has or gains
the more successful it is.That is
certainly the way we talk and act.

The Psalmist on the other hand writes, “Turn
my heart to your decrees and not to selfish gain” (Psalm 119:36).In Jesus’ ministry one thing he avoids
is any hint that he is seeking, let alone compromising his teaching in order to
attract, more members, or even disciples for that matter.Several times he deliberately makes his
ministry more demanding, difficult,
and unattractive for people.He
often seems frustrated by the following he does have.In a famous portion of John 6, he seems content to be abandoned
by almost everyone but his original 12.

One of the justifications often given for
the church seeking to gain members is the Great Commission in Matthew 28.The risen Lord instructs his apostles
to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity and teaching them
to obey his commandments.But his
commandments nowhere value the accumulation in itself of increasing numbers of
members.I have already made the
point in another post that disciples are not the same as members.So what does it mean to “make
disciples” and how is that different from “gaining new members”?

Jesus makes disciples by calling people and
teaching them.We know what he
tells his disciples/apostles to do.Basically, they are to do the same kinds of things Jesus himself does:
healing, casting out demons, building communities, preaching, and
teaching.Disciples are to do
those specific things, and teach others to do them.In this way they are to represent, even in some sense be, Christ in the world.In this way they become members, in the
sense Paul uses the term, of his Body.

Most
churches, when seeking members, do not act, think, or talk as if they are
calling people to anything resembling discipleship, according to Jesus’
descriptions of it.Beyond
requiring a verbal affirmation of Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior,
congregations today do not teach or expect, let alone require, people to become disciples of Jesus in any real way.They do not teach, expect, or require
members to actually do much of
anything.Even showing up at
Sunday worship is apparently too much to ask.(Churches tend to have far more members than regular
attendees.)

Indeed,
were a congregation to enact such requirements I am fairly certain that a
presbytery would strenuously object on the basis of a shallow, out-of-context reading
of G-1.0302: “No person shall be denied membership for any
reason not related to profession of faith.”This would mean that we understand the profession of faith
to be empty, meaningless, and unassociated with any action or behavior.This is not the way the new Testament
understands faith.

In
G-1.0304, however, we see a list of 11 specific things members of congregations
are supposed to be doing.The list
is not optional or merely suggested.It simply assumes that these are things every member of a church is
about.A lot of these are
responsibilities congregations have divested themselves of and assigned to
professional clergy.This practice
of hiring someone else to be a disciple instead of you is foreign to the New
Testament, to say the least.In
reality these behaviors are expected of all
disciples of Jesus Christ.

My
point is that presbyteries should not be evaluating churches on the basis of
membership numbers or growth.Rather, congregational vitality is measured by the character and quality
of discipleship exhibited by the participants in a church’s mission, as
exemplified in G-1.0304, not to mention the explicit commandments and
instructions of the Lord to his own disciples in the gospels.

In
other words, a presbytery has no business dissolving a church because it does
not have “enough” members or money, when these are not categories that the
Scriptures or the Constitution care about in the least.At the same time, where discipleship is
happening, and where members are fulfilling the demands of the 11 categories,
why would a presbytery not feed such
a congregation with needed resources?Indeed, should not a presbytery actively encourage churches to make
disciples rather than just gain members?

Friday, November 15, 2013

There
is not a hint in the New Testament that disciples of Jesus are to be measured,
evaluated, judged, or disposed of according to how much money they have, or
don’t have.This seems so obvious
as to be ridiculous, of course.Jesus says we can’t serve both God and money, we have to pick one or the
other (Luke 16:13).And Paul talks
about the love of money being the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10).

But
some church groups behave as if they have chosen money over God.Granted, few churches these days would
be so crass as to admit to treating an individual decently or not according to
the person’s wealth, consciously at least.Yet I am pretty sure that were an affluent person and a poor
person to show up as visitors on the same day, in many of our churches people would
give preferential treatment to the former.I am sad to say.

But
this bias towards wealth – or more accurately, against poverty – is most
definitely prevalent in the way denominations deal with their constituent
churches. We habitually care more
about how much money a church has, than how well they are doing mission.We will gladly let a church with money
do just about whatever it wants: new steeple, pipe organ, stained glass,
six-figure salary for the “Head of Staff,” etc., no matter how empty and
ineffective may be its actual mission.And we will just as willingly close
a church doing effective, innovative, and faithful mission, for no other reason
than that it ran out of money.

In
fact, a church can even lose money hand
over proverbial fist, but if it is rich enough to absorb the loss and keep paying
its expenses, the church will hear no criticism.And, of course, conversely, a church can see an increase in
giving to it is mission, and still draw the ire of presbytery if the increase
is deemed insufficient.

Furthermore,
because of misuse of the infamous “trust clause,” a small church may be
prevented from – or even punished for
– doing creative mission by a presbytery with leadership chronically deficient
in energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.The trust clause means that a significant portion of a small
church’s resources – its property – is subject to presbytery’s whim.Such property may not be sold or encumbered
without approval of a presbytery.

Churches,
however, that have significant cash
reserves, may do as they please, no matter how counter-missional a particular
initiative may be.Indeed, a
church may even be positively hemorrhaging members, but if they have cash they
need no presbytery approval to do anything not liable to invoke the Rules of
Discipline.But a small church
that wants to support its mission by the liquidation of a manse, or the selling
of an acre of real estate, is subject to the withering scrutiny of a presbytery
whose leaders may be mired in the mindset of the 1950’s, or unwilling or unable
to appreciate the style and/or content of the congregation’s mission.(“Too evangelical.”“Too liberal.” “Too unusual”Whatever.)Indeed,
some in the presbytery may even want
the church to close, so that, when its property is sold off, the proceeds may
be used by the presbytery to pay staff or even reduce the per capita
apportionment.(I’m not
kidding.There are apparently
presbyteries that use the money gained from sold church property in this way,
thus incentivizing the closure of churches.)

The
truth is, that a church that is doing the most effective mission is never the church that has the most money
or is the most profitable.This is
because of what Jesus says.Churches and people don’t get rich by serving God.By
definition, serving God means giving away what you have (Luke 14:33), not
storing your wealth (Luke 12:16-21), and not ignoring the poverty in your midst
(Luke 16:19-31), and so forth.A
church that makes a profit has effectively denied the Lord Jesus and chosen to
serve money instead.There is no
complicated assessment that needs to be done to determine this; just count the cash.Indeed, the most effective churches are
far more likely to be those that habitually lose
money because what resources they have are all going to mission.Every dime sunk into an endowment or
frittered away in paying for a building is robbed from Jesus.

This
is assuming that we are defining “effectiveness,” and “success” according to
Jesus’ teaching that the mission of his disciples is witnessing to the Kingdom
of God (Mark 1:15) by service to the needy (Matthew 25:31-46, etc.),
peacemaking (Matthew 5:9), healing (Luke 7:22), and disciple-making (Matthew
28:19).It’s a big assumption, I
know.Not all that many churches,
let alone presbyteries, are able to wrap their minds around this concept, even though it is screamed at us from
virtually every page of the gospels.

I
pray that the day comes soon when we evaluate churches by the quality and
effectiveness of their mission, and find ways to get our resources to the
places where mission is happening (or at least give them access to the
resources they already have).And
I also look forward to the day when we stop evaluating churches by how much
money they have.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

This is the second of two posts on what it means to be "connectional" in the church.

The Rise of
Horizontal Connectionality.

The
church now needs to cultivate a horizontal
connectionality at every level.Congregations
are networks of disciples who support each other in living out their callings
in the world.Presbyteries are networks
of congregations doing mutual support, encouragement, blessing, and sharing of
resources.And likewise up to the
more inclusive councils of synod and General Assembly.This would enable us to forge bonds of
respect, appreciation, and love that are much stronger than in the vertical
model, which was, frankly, more impersonal and coercive.And it would hopefully militate against
the corrosive inequalities that now grow between churches.The function of a presbytery, then,
would not be to do mission supported
by its churches, but to support the
mission being done by its churches.

Now,
after 32 years in the church I know as well as anyone that not all
congregations even know what mission is,
let alone have any interest in doing it.This dearth of missional intelligence
is widespread among churches regardless of size and wealth.There are too many churches that
haven’t had a missional thought in decades, and whose only wish is that someone
come along and make it 1956 again.They reduce everything to a matter of “getting more members.” This imploded mentality is a product of
vertical connectionalism.In the
first place membership itself is a vertical, corporate category; it defines us by
our relationship to an institution, not each other.But most importantly,
mission always used to be a concern of those farther up the corporate ladder, and
usually happening far, far away.The recovery of the idea that local churches have a mission at all (beyond
serving their own members and sending money to mission agencies) is relatively recent.

Clearly,
any shift to a horizontal approach must be accompanied by a serious, honest,
and challenging discernment of what constitutes faithful, missional, effective,
and courageous discipleship today.Since the criteria for this will not be handed down vertically, it will
have to be done by prayerful study and reflection on Scripture, openness to the
transforming work of the Holy Spirit, and careful examination of the present
context.In fact, this Word and
Spirit of God will emerge in the center of our life, replacing the former
vertical interfaces, and becoming the unity we share.This will take the rightful place at the center – individually,
congregationally, and in more inclusive councils.

The
horizontal connections between churches must reflect a horizontality in the
local congregation.That means
that integral and essential to moving into a horizontal connectional model is
the building of relationships and the empowering of individual disciples in the
congregations.It means the
“flattening” of local church structures so that the main focus is not on the
professional up front, the Pastor, but on the people.Just as
presbyteries no longer do mission “for” the churches, so now no longer must
ministers do mission “for” the congregation.The primary task of the minister now is training people for
mission, and aiding in their coordination and connection in carrying out their mission.

And
this is the same job I see for presbyteries relative to congregations:
training, coordinating, connecting.(If we try to horizontalize presbyteries without doing the same at the
congregational level, presbytery will fail to grow beyond the “clergy
association” appearance it so easily falls into today.)

In
the book of Acts, it is clear that the model practice in the new communities of
the Way is to pool resources from the constituents as they had been blessed by
God, and distribute those resources wherever there is need (Acts 2:44;
4:32).This model shows us a
strong horizontal relationship which begins with the constituents’ directly
relating to each other, and then extends to where the gathering acts as an
integrated whole in a redistributionary way, receiving and giving according to
a calculus of need and equality.

In
a horizontally connectional system, the network will identify, lift up, feed,
and learn from those places where mission is happening.Instead of being in competition with
each other, congregations will support and resource each other.Instead of applying and waiting for resources
to be granted from above, congregations will be able to help each other
directly, based on relationships and not mediated through a superior entity.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

This is the first of two posts on the meaning of "connectional" in the life of the church.

The Collapse of Vertical Connectionalism.

Connectionalism
is a word that we Presbyterians use to describe how we are all, well,
connected.I have heard it all my
life.I think at some point church
leaders were trying to discourage the scourge of “creeping congregationalism”
by extolling the manifold benefits of being in such a well-organized
denomination.

Unfortunately,
that connectedness has nearly always been understood in an exclusively vertical way.That is, we are connected up and down: members to churches
to presbyteries to synods to the General Assembly.It was yet another expression of the now defunct but
strangely persistent corporate model of the church. Local churches were kind of like retail
outlets of a national brand.The
actual “selling” mostly went on locally; much of the mission giving traveled
upward, the authority, coordination, regulation, leadership, and identity was
transmitted downward.The tone of
mission was set at the top, where the resources are published, to flow down to
the other mission agencies.The
corporate flow-chart would have had the little congregations at the bottom,
with lines going up to the presbytery indicating to whom they “report;” but no
lines connecting them to each other.

In
this model very little attention was given to any kind of horizontal connectedness.Maybe this tendency goes back to where we had individual Christians,
sitting in linear pews and all facing the professional Leader/priest “up” front
rather than each other.This vertical
connectionalism always weakened any horizontal connections between people or
churches.I remember what a trauma
it was in some congregations even to introduce something as benign as passing
the peace.Acknowledging, even
(gasp!) physically touching another
person – andy horizontal connectionality – was too dangerous.It was much safer for Presbyterians to
be connected vertically through that one guy up front, with whom everyone individually
shook hands on the way out, than to be related directly to each other.

Indeed,
building on this neurotic fear of connecting horizontally, congregations became
like retail franchises, thinking of themselves in competition with each other.For congregations even to talk directly to each other, let alone share
practices, leadership, and assistance, was a rarity.If one church had a problem with a neighboring church, the
complaint would go up to the presbytery, functioning as the corporate district
manager, not directly to the neighboring church.(We still act this way.As a Stated Clerk I occasionally receive calls from people
complaining about their Pastor or the sessionof their church.My first question is always, “Did you
talk to them about it?”And the
answer most of the time is “No”.)

After
a while, I grew tired of listening to talk of how great our “connectionalism”
was, when all it meant was sending money up the corporate ladder, or arguing
over the content of the Book of Order,
or disputes over the various pointless pronunciamentos of the General Assembly
on social and political issues.Meanwhile, the idea that I should understand connectionalism as having a
direct relationship with the Presbyterian congregation in the next town
remained incomprehensible.We would
see some of those people at the presbytery meeting, or on presbytery
committees.But in real life they
were our adversaries in a dog-fight over market-share.

Small
churches might occasionally get together, pool their scant resources, and share
some programs out of necessity.But to suggest that large churches might help smaller churches did not
make any more sense than that a big, Walmart should help one of the struggling
downtown mom-and-pop stores.(I
worked for Barnes and Noble in the 1980’s when they were systematically
ordering the closure of small stores, even profitable ones like mine, because
of a new strategy, directed from the top, to have only big-box stores.)Better to write off and close the
smaller, or drive them out of business, so the successful one could pick up
even more customers.Something
about economies of scale.

In
the church there was this veneer of mutual support and encouragement, over a
reality of “sheep-stealing” and larger, successful, multi-programmatic churches
picking off the dissatisfied or disgruntled members of smaller or troubled
ones.Frankly, in many communities
it was easier, safer, and more fruitful to make connections with churches of other denominations, than with fellow
Presbyterians.

What
we end up with is an ecclesiastical arrangement that mirrors the gross
inequalities in the larger economy.The resources are locked up in a few large, wealthy churches, while
everyone else is struggling, cutting back, going to part-time ministry, yoking,
merging, etc., and sometimes eventually closing.When it is suggested that some horizontal sharing happen,
the retort is to ask why the obviously “successful” churches should waste their
money by dumping it into “failed” churches.They suggest we close
the unsuccessful, unprofitable churches and give their members to the successful ones?Makes perfect business sense.

This
arrangement is breaking down now, thank God.The vertical understanding of connectionalism doesn’t really
hold so well anymore, as indicated by the difficulty presbyteries have collecting the per capita assessment, and by the reduction in giving by
churches to undesignated General Mission.But if the verticality is eroding, it has yet to be replaced by a
creative horizontal understanding of the church.This means that we are losing connections with each other
altogether.Connectionalism is
collapsing into a destructive reflection of the independent-individualism
pervasive in our culture.In
others words, it’s increasingly every congregation for itself.Nothing could be further from the gospel than this.

The second post will explore what a horizonal connectionality will look like in the church.

Friday, November 8, 2013

That
statement perfectly expresses what it means to have a calling, a vocation.Joseph Campbell famously told his
students: “Follow your bliss.”Do
what you love.Ministry is a
vocation.It is something that
gives to those called to it such joy and fulfillment that ministers would often
do it whether they got paid or not.We do it for the love of the work and of the One who calls us to the
work.

In
the misbegotten “corporate” era of the church – the 1950’s through the 1970’s –
we realized that many ministers were working for love… and often being taken
advantage of by unscrupulous congregations.(Just as ballplayers were abused by team owners in Joe
Jackson’s time.)So we developed
minimum salary standards, medical insurance, pensions, and so forth.In fact, presbyteries began to see
themselves in part as “unions” for ministers.Some of this was good and necessary.

The
unfortunate word attached to this development was “professionalization.”That word meant that a cancerous demon
entered the church: “the love of money,” which in 1 Timothy 6:10 is identified
as “the root of all evil.”Increasingly we adopted the mentality that ministers, like
middle-management bureaucrats, are measured by the amount of money they
make.We stopped assuming that
ministers were working because of their love for God and people; and we started
thinking that ministers as “professionals,” were motivated by money, just like
other professionals.Churches imagine
that, like a corporation, they have to offer bigger salary packages “to attract
the best talent,” because the best, professional, talent cares mostly if not
exclusively about money.This
degenerates into the assumption that higher paid ministers serving in large,
wealthy churches are “better” at their work than lower paid ministers serving
in small, poorer churches.We also
talk about “career tracks” in which ministers start at the “bottom” in small
churches and gradually work their way up to better, that is to say, more
remunerative jobs in big churches.

In
other words, we replaced our understanding of calling with a corporatized,
money-oriented mentality.It is so
bad right now that many simply don’t believe God would call good ministers to
small churches, I guess because God wouldn’t be dumb enough to call a good
pastor to be poor.Pastors, like
everyone else, are assumed to be in it for the money.Not because God called them, or because of the joy and love
of serving God and God’s people.When
we come across someone who really does serve God out of love, who doesn’t care
about the money, our suspicion is that they are either fools or working some
angle we haven’t yet figured out.We
assume that ministers do what they do for the same reason that hedge fund
managers to what they do: for the money.And if they were as bright as hedge fund managers, they would be doing
that.It is an attitude that is
fundamentally toxic to the gospel.In fact, it shoves the gospel into the trash and replaces it with the “values”
of Capitalism.At least in this
part of our life together, we have replaced the gospel with the root of all
evil.That can’t be good.

In
all 2000 years of Christian history,

there
has not been one single saint

who
was in it for the money.

We
have to cut this cancerous mindset out of the church. We have to take definitive steps to remove the love of money
from having any influence at all in the decisions we make as a church.

We
have to stop the delusion that God agrees with our mercenary equation of salary
with quality.Ministers whom God
calls to serve in small, poor churches, are not less faithful or effective than
those whom God calls to serve in large, rich churches.In fact, in my experience it is usually
the opposite.Some of the best
pastors I have ever known worked in small churches.And some of the least effective pastors I have ever known
managed to land sweet positions in large churches.God emphatically does not follow our Capitalistic way of
valuing ministers or measuring competence in ministry.Neither should we.I propose we develop a system whereby
all churches pay into a fund according to their wealth, from which all
ministers are paid equally or by seniority, no matter what the size or wealth
of the church in which they serve.This will have the beneficial effects of both terminating the absurd
idea that better ministers receive bigger salaries, and at the same time hopefully
weed out from the ministry anyone who may still be in it for the money.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

In
his remarkable book, The Emerging Church,
Bruce Sanguin talks about the difference between being a member of a church,
and being a disciple of Jesus Christ.The Presbyterian Church in particular has been talking about membership
almost to the exclusion of discipleship.There does seem to be a kind of assumption that members of churches are also
disciples of Jesus.And the New
Testament does talk about membership, a little.But Jesus calls disciples.He does not attract or even invite people to be members of
his movement.

The
new President of Princeton Seminary, Craig Barnes, has mentioned how obsolete
our understanding of church membership is today.He noted that membership is a residue of the corporate model
of the church, a category developed mainly so we would have “a way to tax
people”.People today, especially
younger people, are not interested in membership as we present it.When a person who has been happily
active in a church for weeks or months is asked to become a member, and they
ask why, all we can offer is some lame reason like, “Then you can vote in the
annual meeting,” or “Then you can be elected an elder.”These are not things that many
participants in our churches understand, let alone care about.

Neither
do disciples.

While
the New Testament talks about being “members” of Christ’s body, membership in
the church today is more institutional than organic.“Membership has its privileges,” is the way one credit card
company used to talk about it.There are plenty of organizations out there that understand themselves
to be in the business of primarily serving their members.Too many churches and their members
have this idea as well, as if the church existed to serve, cater to, satisfy,
and otherwise placate the members.Sanguin relates the story of a minister friend who attempted to move his
congregation to a discipleship paradigm.When the members complained, Sanguin quips that they “didn’t want the
church.They wanted Club
Christendom back.”Club Christendom
has members.Jesus Christ calls
disciples.

Declining
churches frantically scramble for ways to attract new members.What they should be doing is following
Jesus’ own Great Commandment and making disciples, teaching people to obey his
commandments.

Unfortunately,
denominations generally don’t count disciples or reward churches for making
disciples.They count and value members.They don’t care in the slightest whether a church is
teaching people to obey Jesus’ commandments.They care whether the church is gaining members and
money.Denominations today would
enthusiastically trade a church of 20 disciples for a church that gains
members.

How
is a disciple different from a member?Sanguin lays it out:

“Members
pay their dues and want to know what they are getting for their money.Disciples are making an offering of all
their resources and what to know how their money is being used for Christ.Members expect a regular visit from
their minister – after all, they’re card-carrying members!Disciples expect to visit the sick, the
imprisoned, and the lonely.Members help ‘the minister’ out.Disciples discern and deploy their own
gifts for ministry.Members focus
on institutional maintenance.Disciples focus on mission.Members fill bureaucratic slots in the church system.Disciples serve according to their
Spirit-given gifts.Members have
an organizational affiliation.They talk about how many years they have been members.Disciples express their allegiance to
Christ in a dynamic faith community and want to talk about the difference their
community of faith is making in the world.”(Sanguin references a book by Michael W. Foss, Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a
Changing Church, for this insight.)

When
we concentrate on gaining members, we put ourselves in the same category of
institution as a Masonic lodge, a bowling league, a Cub Scout troop, or a
Rotary Club.In different ways,
some groups like this are desperately trying to attract new members.Our culture is moving against joining
and membership.The church is just
one more institution trying to stanch membership loss.

But
what if churches actually started to do what they are called to do?What if they invested their energy in
making disciples instead of gaining and serving members?What if we taught, lived, rewarded,
supported, and became known for the quality of our discipleship?What if we focused on what Jesus did
and commands us to do?Take Luke
4, where Jesus quotes Isaiah, saying that his mission is “to bring good news to the
poor… proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”?And look at Luke 7, where Jesus
validates his own ministry by showing how “the blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the
poor have good news brought to them.”What if this was our identity?What if we did and were known for this kind of behavior and practice?What if we were known for our prayer,
generosity, forgiveness, inclusion, healing, and blessing?

So
all the denominational hand-wringing about membership loss is beside the
point.The fewer people churches
have who think of themselves as members of Club Christendom, the better it is
for the mission of the church.The
point is not gaining members, but making disciples.If we’re doing that, we are doing what the Lord Jesus
commands. Let’s ditch Club
Christendom and turn to follow Jesus.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

The
designation of ministers as “teaching elders” is a feature of the new Form of
Government that is somewhat controversial among Presbyterians.Many, especially ministers, would
prefer to return to the “Minister of Word and Sacrament” title; and they cite
many good reasons for this.However, in no mode of ministry is it more appropriate to call the
minister a teaching elder than for those who work part-time.For in a position where time is
limited, ministry has to be boiled down to its essence, and a lot of this has
to do with teaching.

Full-time
ministry tends to see many areas taken over by, or assigned to, the pastor as
the congregation’s paid professional.We have become so accustomed to the luxury of full-time ministry over
the past few centuries, that large parts of the ministry of church members – the ruling elders, deacons, and laity
– has largely atrophied.People
regularly expect the pastor to be the one, often the only one, who makes hospital visits, leads the people in prayer,
provides educational programs for adults, teaches the Confirmation Class, or preaches.Responsibilities that clearly fall to the ruling elders in the Book of Order, like ordering worship, stewardship,
and evangelism, are routinely given over to the pastor.The pastor will do these things theoretically
on the people’s behalf; but at the same time the deacons and ruling elders have
to be cultivating the skills, knowledge, or expertise to bear a lot these
responsibilities themselves.

I
contend that teaching is the essence of ministry based on the example of the
Lord Jesus and the apostles of the New Testament.We often underestimate how much of their work consisted in training others in ministry.Jesus sends his disciples out on two
missions, and many of his teachings are given to the disciples for their
spiritual and missional formation.Even his own ministry of healing and teaching often has an exemplary
purpose.He is giving his
followers behaviors to imitate.

The
new worshiping communities established by the apostles had no regular “pastors”
as we understand them.Neither
were most Gentile gatherings likely even to have a complete copy of the Bible (which would
have been the Greek Old Testament).What they appear to have had was a group of well-trained elders, and an
assortment of different visiting preachers and evangelists.Yet the theology they did get was so
strong and attractive, and the communities they formed so loving and
supportive, that the young sect grew explosively.With hardly any of the resources we have come to depend on,
I suspect the main way faith in Jesus Christ was taught to people in the
earliest church was by example and imitation, first of Jesus, then of those who
imitated him.

Teaching,
therefore, must not be reduced to the model of one person disseminating information
to students sitting in rows in a classroom, or even around a table.While of course there is a place for
this, teaching happens even more effectively by example or in
conversation.Having a class on
prayer is fine; but people are more edified when they experience the pastor
praying, and are given opportunities to pray, and lead others in prayer,
themselves.Holding a Bible study
is good; but the people should be able to see how the pastor’s whole life is an
encounter with the Word.And they
should be given access to high quality resources on Scripture and
theology.Doctrine should not be a
matter of dry and technical memorization; doctrine has to be a reflection of,
and on, our practice.And the
exemplary practitioner in the local congregation is the pastor.

In
part-time ministry, pastors have to decide how to invest their limited hours.Some things – many things – have to be let go of as responsibilities assigned to
the pastor.If these are not just non-essential
or missionally pointless activities, they will have to be picked up by members of
the church.The job of the pastor,
then, becomes more than the doing of ministry; it broadens out into the teaching of others to do ministry as well.

So
part-time ministry doesn’t just require the pastor to have an approach very
different from that of the full-time pastor we have become accustomed to, the
members of the congregation also have to change their expectations, both of the
pastor and of themselves.Part-time ministry demands that the people reinvest themselves into the
fullness of ministry.It means
that otherwise often trite slogan about how all-the-members-are-the-ministers,
actually expresses a legitimate aspiration and even becomes true.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Wednesday
began with a talk from Linda Valentine, the Executive Director of the
Presbyterian Mission Agency (formerly General Assembly Council).She told a delightful story about
perseverance using her family’s bike trip from Pittsburgh to Washington.They mostly used old canal tow-paths
and railroad right-of-ways, which made for a beautiful journey through the
woods.

I
had to wonder, though.These are
obsolete modes of transportation far removed from what is now the beaten
path.Is our denomination another
example of an outmoded institution now relegated to the hinterlands and
backwaters, while the real action is on superhighways and in airports?Is this just another indication of our
being the old Buick?

And
what is the relationship of this image – the irrelevant and nearly forgotten
institution nobody uses anymore – to Corey’s insight that change comes from the
margins?Maybe the transformation
of these pathways from decrepit and abandoned places, to beautiful, natural,
and tranquil, if considerably slower and simpler, ways of getting from place to
place, is also something to pay attention to.

I
mean, we all know how the church’s frantic obsession with relevance and being
current often detracts from and seriously undermines our mission.Maybe the Kingdom of God is less
evident in the latest hot, fast, kinetic, “contemporary” thing, and more
available and present in counter-cultural
expressions of spiritual depth, like Taizé services, or spiritual practices
like meditation, chanting, calligraphy, iconography, or journaling.Maybe it’s better and more missionally
effective to be the reclaimed old tow-path or railroad line, an alternative to our frenetic,
roller-coaster/meat-grinder economy.This is not to totally and permanently withdraw from that world, but at
least to be grounded in life and presence while we make missional forays into
the world.Maybe the recovery of
these lost places makes a statement that God and life always win in the end,
and that though our projects eventually crumble, God’s love never fails.Maybe there is community and
spirituality that is deeper than an iPhone app.

The
second presenter was Vera White, the coordinator of the 1001 New Worshiping
Communities initiative that is one of the really bright spots in our
denomination.(Even Brian McLaren
is impressed; he says it’s an indication that, of all the old denominations,
Presbyterians are the ones that most get it.I find that both encouraging and scary.)

1001NWC
includes 156 new groups doing a variety of new things in different ways.Almost half of these serve mainly
non-white people; 25% are aimed at young-adult populations.Over a third are in vulnerable
communities (trailer parks, inner city, etc.).She showed a video highlighting three of these.This the most important thing we are
doing as a denomination, and it has the potential to energize even established
churches.It takes some courage
for our leadership to invest resources in this direction because it necessarily
means shifting energy away from existing congregations.It is a recognition of something I have
been saying for a long time, which is that “redevelopment” of old churches is
nearly impossible, and that it takes a lot less energy and yields exponentially
more benefits when we instead start new worshiping communities.

That
being said, and not to detract from this important effort in any way, it is
somewhat disturbing that the three examples Vera gave were an Asian NWC, a
white NWC, and an African-American NWC.In other words, it looks like we’re still segregated.I hope this is not the case and that
our NWC’s will be characterized by multi-racial and multi-cultural values.

Secondly,
and perhaps I am hyper-sensitive to this, but Vera used two words about the
eventual goal of NWC’s that alarmed me.These words are “accountability” and “sustainability.”These terms are often Presbyterian code
for the old model of church we are trying to grow out of.I worry that all these exciting NWC’s
will eventually be reined in and have to account for themselves according to
the same old criteria for “success” that have oppressed us for
generations.Will we remain
enthusiastic about that trailer-park ministry in 10 years, when they still have
“only” 30 people, no building, and can’t afford a full-time minister?Or will we write them off as failures,
even though they continue to do effective ministry?Will we still support an out-of-the-box gathering of young
adults in 5 years, when it becomes apparent that they don’t really operate
according to the Book of Order or Robert’s Rules, they don’t have “membership”
that can be reliably counted for per capita purposes, and they are, say,
allowing non-ordained people to celebrate sacraments?Will we continue to make glitzy videos about ministries when
they are working with constituencies who are unlikely to produce new members or
contribute money?

We’ll
see.(It is discouraging that the
highest level of support for NWC’s come from Walton Awards.This is money from the Walton family
that was generated in the systematic demolition of countless communities, the
ruining of unnumbered good businesses, and the intentional impoverishment of
millions of employees, by some of the richest people on the planet and their
execrable and demonic enterprise: the Wal-Mart chain of retail stores.See yesterday’s comment about the
feudal practice of supporting mission by sucking up to the nobility.)

And
I do hope and pray that the blessed and good energy of 1001NWC will overflow to
our existing churches – and that presbyteries will allow older churches to
benefit from the freedom, flexibility, and support for innovation and
creativity that NWC’s enjoy.For,
even though “redevlopment” is usually a waste of time, there is a tiny number
of churches that actually did
transform, sometimes at great cost, and these also need our attention and
encouragement.

The
polity conference officially ended before lunch, which is also when the annual
meeting of the Association of Stated Clerks commenced.One of the things we discovered from a
recent survey of clerks is that nearly half of us are retired from some other
work, which means that nearly half are over 65.(Now I can see why Gradye retold that story about King
Reheboam’s advisors.Do the clerks
represent the wise elders, while the EP’s represent the hot-headed young
men?Is it because we have
followed the latter that we are currently being split into different realms? Just kidding.Sort of.)

The
fact that clerks tend to be older does explain a lot.Clerks have historically tended to be the brake on
innovation and experimentation, and the guardians of rules, regulations, and
“order.”This is changing, thank
God.Since about 2009, these
conferences have turned much more hopeful and forward looking than had been, at
least in my experience.Having to
adjust to the new Form of Government (which many clerks opposed rather
strenuously) and simply facing the dismal missional reality in many
presbyteries, and forward-thinking leadership, has led clerks beyond being just
the stewards of the rules, and making us more open to using our rules as tools
for mission, even innovative mission.

The
main speaker was Greg Goodwiller, the sub-title of whose talk, “Robert’s Rules
as a Tool for Faithful Discernment,” was, well, ominous.

A
little background: Presbyterians are historically apostles for Robert’s Rules
of Order (RONR).We have always
prided ourselves in doing process well.Recently, however, many – even some clerks – have found themselves
frustrated by features of RONR.It
is perceived as adversarial, designed to produce winners and losers, and
detrimental to community discernment.

I
have always thought this was unfair.(One of my first churches was United Methodist.I have first hand experience of denominational
meetings that do not flow according to any intelligible order.)RONR is also designed to ensure full
participation, mitigate the influence of bullies, lower the level of
destructive emotion, and really develop consensus, or at least a sense that
everyone has been heard.That’s
when it’s used well.

Often
it is not used well.And Greg was
coming to the rescue to help us use RONR better.

He
began his talk by going all the way back to Genesis, and building the
theological foundation for RONR and our use of it.Along the way he stated some assumptions that I think are
the root of the problem.He said,
as if it were obvious and unarguable, that “God’s will is undivided.”While this may be argued theologically,
it is really clear to me from the Scriptures that God’s will, at least as far
as we humans can see, is often quite
divided, a fact that Jesus recognizes when he contrasts his views with accepted
readings of the Bible.The
ideological assertion that’s God’s will is undivided has at least given aid and
comfort to imperialist polities that require God’s will, which is to say the
will of the ruling class, to be taken by the people as undivided.Part of the larger problem we are
dealing with these days is the assumption that the church may only hold one
opinion on issues, may only move in one direction, and must stifle all
alternatives.

(Dealing
with the apparent dividedness of God’s will in Scripture, Walter Brueggemann
has developed his understanding of “dialogical” biblical interpretation, which
basically intentionally takes into account these different and often competing
and contradictory readings, listening to what emerges from the tension.The belief that Scripture is only
allowed to say one thing is a residue of imperialist Christendom we are well
rid of.)

A
related bias is embedded in our polity, which is that “a majority shall
govern.”Majority rule is an
arbitrary and culturally conditioned practice.There is little or no hint of it in the Bible.Indeed, most of the time the faith is
kept by tiny minorities sometimes referred to as “faithful remnant.”If majority rule were in effect, the
Israelites would still be in Egypt, and most other positive developments of
God’s people would never have happened.In the New Testament, decisions are often made, not by
voting, but by lot!

So
combining these two ideas – that God’s will is undivided and that majorities
rule – leads us to a potentially, and often actually, toxic blend whereby slim
majorities get to impose their will on large minorities.And two years later, the parties are
reversed.

But
the primary and most frequently enacted image in our faith is that of breaking,
distributing, and participating, in the Eucharist. I see this as an indication that there is a manifold manifestation of the one Body of Christ.We receive a piece of the same single
loaf; and at the same time, we enact the Body in our own lives and situations
in more than one way.Except in
very basic things, there is no need – in fact it is even detrimental – for there to be only one, single, unified,
undifferentiated expression of the faith.

Our
polity usually recognizes this.But in times of insecurity, or when a particular perspective becomes
overly pervasive, we start doing this top-down, one-size-fits-all legislative
thing, identifying minorities and squashing them.It’s not a good thing no matter which side manages to grab
this power.

Anyway,
the fact that we are now concerned with “discernment” is an indication that
there is no dominant perspective anymore, from which we receive marching
orders.Now we have to focus on
trying to hear the word of God.And many don’t think RONR particularly
helpful here.

Hence
Greg’s attempt to show that, no, really, RONR can be used as an effective tool
for discernment.Not just for
identifying minorities and cutting them off.He did manage to find several tools within RONR that may be
used for discernment.Some of them
involved just getting out from under the rules, which is what many are doing
anyway.Greg’s point, I think, was
that the rules allow a body to suspend them in an effort to “crystallize
opinion.”Basically, you
temporarily ditch the rules and do something else that works better.But then, Greg reminded us, the body
has to get back under the rules to actually make a decision.

The
body may also use the rules themselves for discernment.And Greg walked us through motions to
“postpone indefinitely,” “reconsider,” “rescind or amend something previously
adopted,” substitute motions, and, my favorite (probably because I still have
no idea what he was talking about), “create a blank.”

I
remain convinced that the basic principles of RONR are sound and
necessary.Otherwise, meetings
degenerate into the tyranny of the obnoxious extroverts with axes to grind.This human tendency to allow the power
of the powerful to increase, at the expense of the less powerful, is the
Pharaoh-model that God rejects and replaces at Mt. Sinai.Certainly we need to resort
occasionally to other processes to build trust and community.Especially in small groups, people need
to communicate without the cumbersome apparatus of making motions and so forth.
(Greg showed us that RONR actually includes more informal provisions for
smaller bodies.)And the question
of RONR’s Eurocentric, rationalistic bias needs seriously to be addressed.But when used intentionally,
judiciously, and well, RONR usually works pretty well.It’s mostly common sense flowing from
the two main principles: everyone gets to be heard, and don’t waste time.

Which
reminds me: I went to my room after dinner to get some work done, to discover
that the government appeared to be cancelling self-destruct mode.If the Congress were using RONR, it is
less likely that any of this psychotic, nihilistic, foolishness would have
happened.But in the end, no
system is fool proof.